Why was Henry purcell famous?

Henry Purcell took a leading role in the restoration of English music following the restoration of the Stuarts in 1660, following the interregnum during which the arts had received considerably less support and were regarded as suspect by the Puritans. In addition, he was adopted by 20th-century composer British Benjamin Britten as part of a characteristically English tradition of music that went beyond the known Sullivan, Elgar and Vaughan Williams. When Britten took the rondo from Abdelazar and arranged it to form the 'Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra', he made a Purcell melody unusually famous.